


Take Me Away

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-04-04 11:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: Pidge's bond with Green deepens when they are both captured and in Galra hands for several weeks, but could too much dependence on her relationship with her lion - even after coming home to the castle - be detrimental both to Pidge and the team? What will it take for her friends to help her heal?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Any feedback is definitely appreciated! I look forward to hearing from ya'll! Thanks!

When they find Pidge, it’s after weeks of searching. Seven weeks, two days, and thirteen hours, to be exact. It’s Shiro’s fault Lance even knows that number. Their leader has only been updating everyone on the stats about every five minutes the entire time she’s been gone - since he toppled out of a med pod and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Katie! Where’s Katie!”

Because apparently that’s actually Pidge’s name, and supposedly they were all supposed to have known that since she dropped the Um-I’m-a-Girl bomb a few months ago, but Lance had been having enough trouble at the time processing that one to catch anything else, and they all still call her Pidge anyway, so how was he supposed to remember? 

Anyway. It’s not like Lance actually has a problem knowing how long Pidge has been gone...it just makes it suck more every time Shiro--or, sometimes, Keith--says something.

Lance still doesn’t know the details of how the Galra got hold of her, really. Hunk doesn’t either. No one will spell it out. Keith popped through that wormhole above the icy water planet Lance and Hunk had landed on and came down for them. When they got back to the castle there was no warm group welcome in the hangar. No ticker-tape we’re-all-back-together party.

Keith met them in the corridor between the lions, and Lance still remembers the look on his face. Like he hated being the bearer of bad news.

“Where is everybody?” Lance asked.

“Have you not found the others yet?” Hunk echoed.

“Shiro’s in a med pod. He’ll be fine in another day or two…” Keith paused too long. Longer than usual for him, anyway. That was when Lance knew something was wrong. 

“Keith, what?”

“The Galra have Pidge.” He wasn’t looking at them anymore. Of course he wasn’t. Quiznaking...quiznak. 

“You couldn’t have said something sooner!?” Lance could have decked him then. He really could have.

“We were under water! And private team affairs were none of their business!”

Hunk scoffed. “Who were the mermaids gonna tell, Keith? You didn’t think that was important?”

“Paladins!” 

Allura, rounding the corner into the corridor with Coran on her heels. And thank god for her, or they might have _really_ been at each other's throats soon enough. They were all tired, they’d just gotten Allura back, then been tossed to the four corners of the galaxy thanks to the druids screwing with their escape wormhole, and now this…

It was not a good day.

“What happened!” Lance demanded.

“Pidge constructed a signaling device that led Coran and I to her, and helped us to find Keith and Shiro, but unfortunately the Galra were somehow able to track us there as well.” 

Keith’s arms crossed over his chest as he glared off at nothing. “We were in the middle of getting back to the castle from the surface of the planet when they showed up. Shiro was injured and could barely fly. It was an entire fleet; we were no match for them with two and a half lions.”

Neither Keith nor Allura seemed to want to finish the story, so Coran did it for them. “Pidge ran interference until Keith could get Shiro aboard the castle, but by then they’d locked onto her lion with an upgraded tractor beam. We...we weren’t able to free her from it in time.”

It hasn’t been a great few weeks since. The Galra have been smarter this time - keeping her on a ship and always moving rather than dragging her back to Zarkon’s central command.

Lance doesn’t really want to think about the fact that they’ve been actively trying to keep them from finding Pidge means their objective is definitely different this time. They’re not trying to lure in Voltron--or what’s left of Voltron--like they were with Allura. So what do they want?

 

* * *

 

_“Pidge, hang on, I’m coming after you!”_

_“Don’t you dare, Keith! You do that, you’ll be stuck in this tractor beam too. Find the others and come back for me.”_

_“We’re not leaving—”_

_Green rattled at another impact to the tractor beam’s genesis point from Keith’s lasers, but the beam itself didn’t even flicker and the Galra ship pulling her in loomed closer. There was no time. As soon as they had Pidge and her lion inside they’d go after Keith and Shiro._

_“Shiro, tell him you have to! Allura!”_

_Shiro’s voice then, as her radio began to cut out. “Keith...Keith, she’s right...”_

Of course she’d been right.

That doesn’t mean she hasn’t regretted being right every day since.

She still dreams about the day it happened. She still wonders if it could have gone differently. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, but she knows her hair is in her eyes and just starting to swing above her shoulders. Then again, back at the castle she was constantly trimming it to keep her short style intact...stupid teenage hormones making it grow like weeds, she guessed. Maybe it hasn’t been too long...just a few weeks. Or something.

It’s so quiet in this cell. It’s a nice contrast from...other times. But if she’s in here long enough it can be maddening. She likes being alone but it’s never silent. At the very least there is always the keys of her computer in the background, or music to keep her company.

At least Green is here to keep her from going crazy.

Well...not _here_ here. But on the ship. Somewhere. Pidge can feel it. If she closes her eyes Green is there, telling her to hold on, like the soft hum of a purring kitten in her ear if it were deeper...and, somehow, so much more powerful and infinitely more gentle all at once.

 

* * *

 

_Then_

The stars disappeared with the rumbling hiss of the Galra ship’s hangar doors closing and pressurizing...and a certain finality that sent a shiver up Pidge’s spine. Any remaining signal she was getting from the castle or the other lions dried up in static.

She was alone. The Galra were coming for her. She clawed her helmet off and jumped up from her seat, priming her bayard. She expected them to burst in after her but...nothing happened. She could hear a faint banging, but not for long. There were cries from outside as Green’s particle barrier went up, and through the viewscreen she caught a glimpse of several singed Galra skittering back out of the way. 

Pidge laughed. It was short and anxious, but it was better than being terrified. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”

A warm feeling in her mind answered that--something like a laugh in return. Pidge smiled.

_No, I’m not alone. You’re here._

 

* * *

 

 _Now_  

Where are all the prisoners? Hacked radio chatter led to this region of space, and tracking the green lion’s signal led to this ship - which apparently wasn’t been easy, according to Hunk and Coran. Something about shielding and signal scrambling from the Galra, and anyway. Lance didn’t really understand any of it. He just knows they’ve sort-of known about this lone ship out here at the edge of the galaxy for a couple of weeks now, but it’s taken this long to pinpoint its location.

The green lion is on this ship. That they can be sure of. But where is Pidge?

Shiro has that look on his face as they cut down sentries and wander farther and farther into the bowels of what should be the prisoner section of the ship. His jaw is set, expression carefully schooled. But they all know that look anyway - when he doesn’t want to say something is wrong but he definitely thinks something is wrong.

Corridor upon corridor of empty cells. Sparse sentries, because why guard empty cell blocks?

“Do you—” Lance has to stop and clear his throat when it doesn’t come out. “Shiro...you don’t think it’s just Green they have here, do you? Could they have Pidge on another ship? Or…”

“No. She’s here.”

“How do you know?” He doesn’t get an answer, which means Shiro doesn’t have one. “Look, I want to find her as much as you do, but what if she’s not here?”

“She’s here,” Shiro insists again. They haven’t quite rounded a new corner when Shiro shoves him back around to where they came from.

“What?”

“Two sentries, down the corridor. Not moving, just guarding a door I think. It could mean something. Come on, if we go around the other way we’ll come out closer to them.”

Sentry robots are easy, but the door they were guarding is not. It’s like the power to it has failed. They try pulling it open, blasting the control panel...nothing. In the end Shiro cuts through it with his arm and tosses the whole door away like it’s so much scrap metal.

“Why guard a broken door?” Lance asks. He wants to be watching the opening, to see who or what is inside as soon as Shiro does, but he can’t. He’s covering the corridor behind them, bayard rifle swinging in slow arcs.

“That’s why,” Shiro says. It sounds...wrong. Confused. From the corner of his eye Lance catches Shiro darting inside the cell, with no further explanation.

“Is she in there?” Lance asks. He can hear his voice ticking up in pitch, and he’s not a fan of it. He backs quickly into the cell, still covering the entrance, but he has to see.

“What’s the point of these?” Shiro is saying. Angry. Frustrated.

“The point of what?”

When Lance looks, when he’s satisfied there isn’t a new wave of sentries or Galra soldiers about to bear down on their position, he finds all that is in the cell is a single prisoner. A small figure against the right wall, held against it in a sitting position by purplish Galra energy restraints pinning their wrists to either side of their head. Shiro’s hand is already glowing again, ready to cut them away.

“Is it her?” Lance asks again. Whoever it is doesn’t seems conscious, head bowed forward over chest. The hair is longer, hiding the face, but it’s the same color as Pidge’s hair, if a little dirty and unkempt...

But part of him almost doesn’t want it to be her now. He doesn’t want it to be his friend held there like that. They’ll rescue whoever it is - of course they will - and they want Pidge back more than anything, but...Shrio seems to be having the same thoughts as he kneels there and reaches out tentatively with the hand that’s still his own.

When he brushes back the hair in the way enough to tuck it behind an ear, Lance thinks they pull in a breath at the same time...and they can’t pretend that maybe it’s someone else anymore.

A soft sound breaks the silence. A wince cracks the dry skin of Pidge’s lips as she shifts. 

“Pidge?” Shiro asks. “It’s okay. It’s us.” He makes quick work of the first of the wrist restraints, but he goes more slowly with the second after a sharp cry comes from the girl when her arm drops. Like maybe she’s been in that position for too long.

Lance has to look away. His stomach is churning and he ends up searching the walls of the cell instead. He doesn’t know why - he doesn’t really want to know any more about what’s been going on here - but there’s nothing else to look at. That’s when he finds the half-destroyed panels near the door, here on the inside of the cell. Their covers have been pried away, wires pulled out and spliced. He would recognize Pidge’s handiwork anywhere.

“Shiro, look…” He motioned to the panels with his rifle. “That must be why the restraints.” Shiro looks up, but not for long. Lance can’t decide whether he seems more angry or more proud.

Shiro starts to lift Pidge away from the wall, but that’s when she gains a modicum more of consciousness. She doesn’t seem able to do much with her arms, but she manages to get a foot between them and starts struggling, trying to kick him, eyes still closed.

“Pidge, it’s okay!” Shiro tells her again. Rather than hold her tighter he lets her go, for the most part, letting the wall take her weight again but still keeping his arms out to keep her from toppling over entirely. “It’s okay, it’s us. It’s me, Shiro. It’s okay..." 

She relaxes, slowly. Her eyes flicker open, struggling to focus. “Shiro…?” Her voice is rough and cracking.

“It’s me…”

“And Lance,” Lance adds, hurrying over. “Lance is here too. Obviously. Shiro definitely could not have found you without me. Just saying.”

Pidge lets out and uneven breath, and her focus slips away. More like she’s focusing on something...else. Something beyond them “Green...Green…?”

“Your lion is here. That’s where we’re going next,” Shiro says. “We’re getting you both out of here, but you’ve got to let me pick you up. I doubt you could walk.” 

“That _was_ the plan,” Lance whispers. “But how are we supposed to use her lion to get out of here if she can’t fly?” Hunk and Keith are out there in their lions, keeping the Galra distracted for now. Hunk could punch through a bulkhead like he did to get Allura back if all else fails, but they need the green lion back too if they’re ever going to form Voltron again.

Shiro scoops Pidge up in his arms, and this time she lets him. Her eyes have clamped shut again and she’s still mumbling her lion’s name, over and over and over. It’s kind of creepy, honestly.

“Somehow I don’t think we’ll have a problem with that,” Shiro says. But he doesn’t look like he really knows how he feels about it.

 

* * *

 

_Then_

“Wha…?!” Pidge startled awake and toppled over from her position on the floor leaning against her console when her lion shook once again with the impact of low-yield weapons--whatever the Galra could afford to fire inside their own hangar. She’d been staying near the floor, just in case.

“They haven’t gotten the message that won’t work yet?” she grumbled. She held out hope that her friends would find her before the Galra even got to her. Green’s particle barrier had stayed up, protecting her inside, for more than two days now. 

She couldn’t stay here forever. There was no food, and no water. Going without for a while was better than subjecting herself sooner to whatever they might have planned for her, but she wasn’t willing to die. Not shut in here. Voltron and her friends needed her, and...and she didn’t really have any information that could put anyone in danger, did she?

Her mind stuttered over that one as she stared up at the ceiling of Green’s cockpit. She didn’t know where the castle had gone; she couldn’t give away her friends’ position. She’d been learning about the castle itself, and how it worked. But surely she didn’t know more than the Galra would already know. They’d already taken the castle once, after all. But…

Dad. Matt. The Galra didn’t know she was related to them. They didn’t know who she was. If they found out it could only make things worse for both herself and her family. That was the entire point of keeping up the appearances out here of the disguise she’d adopted at the Garrison.

But it was also true that she couldn’t find her family if she were dead.

Green’s floor was kind of nice. Cool...relaxing. Pidge didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed before. Another day passed, she thought, and if there was a spike in what was surely some kind of fever brought on by the dehydration, all she had to do was roll over and find a fresh, cool bit of metal.

How long had she been down here on the floor? It didn’t really matter; she couldn’t have gotten up again if she wanted to. Everything was spinning. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Green was rumbling in the back of her mind, trying to keep her alert, maybe. How long had that been going on? This _was_ the third day, right? Or was it the fourth? Or...

A roar woke her up this time. She didn’t know if it was only in her head, but it was Green. Some part of Pidge knew a sudden scare like that should have given her enough adrenaline for at least a few good minutes, but…

It was already passing. Everything was going dark again.

Another roar, and banging from outside, crashing, and...inside. Pounding footsteps coming up, toward the cockpit, toward her. Green had let the particle barrier drop - the only thing the lion could do now to keep her alive. Before Pidge passed out, there was a feeling she could only describe as her lion telling her it was sorry.

“You did your best, girl,” she whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Now _

“Guys, did you find her?” Hunk’s voice comes over their radios, impatient and anxious.

“We found her,” Shiro answers. “We’ve got her.” There are responses from everyone, various shades of relieved and questioning, but Hunk is the loudest. 

“Well is she okay...?” he asks.

Shiro holds onto the slim figure in his arms a little more closely, and doesn’t look like he knows what to say to that. Lance doesn’t blame him.

“Shiro?” Allura. 

“...she will be,” Shiro says finally.

“Quiznak…” Hunk trails off into some kind of unidentifiable sound.

Lance scowls at nothing, since he can’t see his friend’s face. “Dude, are you like, okay?”

“Shut up, Lance!”

Keith cuts in, “Just get her home in one piece.”

“Let us know if we need to bust something open,” Hunk adds. He sounds like he want to.

“We will,” Shiro says quickly. “But we’re trying the green lion first.”

“Just keep our butts clear until then,” Lance says. The only responses he gets to that are a snort and a huff, and he’s pretty sure those are Keith and Allura, respectively. 

“I’ll prepare a rejuvenation pod as soon as the castle is clear of the battle,” Coran assures them. “Shouldn’t take two doboshes.” 

Lance wants to start asking questions, like, yeah, but will the pod fix the fact that it doesn’t look like she can really move her arms much? Or the whole thing were she’s kind of awake but won’t really look at them? But he holds his tongue, because they have to get out of here and what good would questions do, anyway? And the pods fixed him and Shiro, didn’t they?

So. Yeah. It should. It better. 

Shiro motions to the door with his head, indicating they should go and Lance should cover him. But that’s when the flashing starts and the alarms go off. 

“Well, this is gonna be fun,” Lance sighs. 

 

_ Then _

Disembodied voices, distorted and harsh. Needles. Fits of semi-consciousness, maybe, until anything solidified. She was on her back on some sort of table covered in a stiff pad, her wrists bound to the surface. 

“...well?”

“Merely dehydration and lack of nourishment. No more than another quintant, and she will be well enough for interrogation.”

“She?”

No. No no no no no…

They couldn’t know who she was. They couldn’t. The voices were off to the left, so she tried tugging at the wrist restraint on the right. She kept her eyes closed but they noticed anyway. After a few moments someone barked at someone else for another sedative. 

No…

A pinprick in her arm. Pidge grunted angrily, and pried her eyes open before the effects could drag her back again. She didn’t know who she was scowling at, but a face swam above her and she directed every inch of anger she had at it. 

“I won’t tell...any of you... _ anything _ …”

 

_ Now _

Lance loses count of how much cover fire he lays down on the way to the hangar the green lion is being held in, or how many sentry robots he drops. Shiro is able to get them there by a route that keeps them out of the worst of any trouble, but they still run up to Green with a whole squadron of Galra on their heels. 

There’s no time to worry if the lion will let it’s particle barrier down for them. Green must sense her pilot’s presence, because the shield snaps away as soon as they’re near and snaps back up around them once they’re within its range, to keep the Galra out. Shiro glances back in wonder as they make for the hatch. Energy weapons break like popcorn over the particle barrier behind them. 

“Well that worked.”

“We still have to be able to fly this thing,” Lance reminds him. He stumbles over something as they make their way up into the cockpit. It takes him a moment to realize it’s the pieces of Pidge’s armour strewn across the floor. “What the…?”

The lights are coming on. That’s good. There’s the usual hiss as the interior hatch closes and and the air pressurizes, but the console stays dark. 

“Shiro? Lance? I’m reading you at the green lion,” Allura says. “Will you be able to make it out on your own?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro answers. “We’ve got light and air, but no displays.”

Hunk chimes in eagerly. “I can definitely bust open that hangar and tow you out if you need me to do that.”

Lance drops into the pilot’s seat of the green lion and begins fiddling with the control levers, but to no avail. “Come on, Green, we’ve got to get you out of here…”

Shiro sighs. “It’s looking like that’s our best option, Hunk.”

“I agree,” Allura says. “It’s getting heated out here; we need to go before Galra reinforcements can arrive.”

“It’s getting heated out  _ there _ ?” Lance scoffs. “We’ve got a whole squad bearing down on this lion right now.”

As if to punctuate his point, Green jolts under a sudden impact. Lance is able to brace himself in the chair, but Shiro drops to his knees with Pidge. Shiro only grunts, but Pidge, who has been quiet since they left her cell, cries out. 

As soon as the brief shaking stops Lance is on his feet before he even realizes he decided to move. “Pidge?”

She looks more awake than she was before. She’s still not focusing on them again yet, not really, but she’s casting her eyes around the cockpit and...after a moment the fact that she’s here seems to calm her. 

“Green,” she whispers.

Lance looks at Shiro. Shiro just makes a face. 

Hunk’s voice comes over the radio. “Hold on tight, everybody! One busted hangar door, coming right up!”

Shiro hasn’t bothered to get up. Now he sinks back against the bulkhead at the side of the cockpit, still crading Pidge. Lance leans in over them to help brace her as the green lion shakes again - this time from Hunk’s laser blasts. Keith swipes in behind him to pull the destroyed doors off and propel them off into space and away from the opening.

Hunk is circling back around to come in after them. Lance glances out the front screen, at the opening into space that’s been made and...oh. Right. Galra sentries and soldiers that have been blown into space. The squadron that chased them into the hangar. 

He almost misses it when Pidge manages to clumsily swing an arm down to brush the bulkhead beside Shiro. When her skin makes contact with the metal, something happens. The metal floor beneath them begins to warm, and the consoles light up. 

“Go, girl,” she breathes.

And the green lion comes to life with a sudden roar and blasts into space. 

 

_ Then _

_ My heart is beating so fast.  _

_ Why am I so afraid? _

Pidge startled awake on her back again, but this time it wasn’t a table. The ground beneath her was soft, and she was looking up at a soft blue sky. A faint breeze rustled her clothes, blowing tall stalks of grass and pink and yellow flowers into her field of vision.

A field on a space cruiser?

She sat up, heart still pounding even though she didn’t know why. It wasn’t just any field. This was...Allura’s Altean meadow. The hologram deck in the castle. 

Was it over already? Had she been rescued? 

A soft, welcoming growl pulled her attention away from the sky and flowers and looking for the door in the illusion. When she turned, she supposed she should have been surprised...but somehow the green lion only feet behind her wasn’t a surprise at all. 

Why wasn’t it a surprise? This wasn’t the lion she flew. Not...not the way her lion usually looked, anyway. Huge. Metal. This was a real lion, sized appropriately, but...green. 

“It’s you…” she whispered. It was Green. Somehow she knew that. Pidge climbed slowly to her feet, dusting dirt from the knees of her shorts. She glanced down long enough at that to realize she was wearing her own clothes here. 

Where was here?

Green came closer, muscles rippling under the green fur and skin — clearly powerful, but Pidge wasn’t afraid. Not of the lion, anyway. Her chest still felt strangely tight, her heart pressing at her, fear gnawing in a nebulous sense, but not because of anything...here. 

She held out a hand and her lion nudged into it, sniffing it, inviting her to touch. Pidge stroked the furry face, then shoulder and flank as the big cat circled around her. She felt the warmth of the lion’s body and how safe it made her feel to be here. The fear began to ebb, but...a flash of something snagged in her mind and refused to let go. 

“Where are we?” Pidge asked. “In...in my head? Your head? Some kind of other plane?” The answer came, as it always did, in knowledge. Yes, and no. Yes. Sort of. 

“You sound like me trying to explain something to Mom,” Pidge huffed. But she smiled, briefly. Only briefly. That something still tugged at her. A feeling. A sound. A _ loud  _ sound, though it was faint to her here. 

Green nuzzled into her side, and Pidge got the distinct impression the lion was trying to distract her. “Hold on, girl, just…”

A scream. She froze when it came to her, her eyebrows climbing. That’s what it was. Her own voice. She was screaming. 

“Green…?” Her voice shook. But that wasn’t her voice, was it? It was all an illusion. And her throat felt sore, didn’t it? That was real. 

Stop it. Ignore it. It doesn’t matter.

“How can I…?” Her knees went out from under her as flashes seeped through. Being rudely awakened in the infirmary, dragged to a room and strapped into some sort of apparatus and trying to hide the fact she was nearly hyperventilating. She couldn’t let them see that. And then...

Green nuzzled her again, drew in close and laid down next to her in the grass, curling her body around her paladin and licking her face. The flashes faded.

Pidge wrapped her arms around the lion’s neck. “You...you’re protecting me…” A low purring came in answer. 

“Thank you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think. :) I will respond to any comments if I can.


	3. Chapter 3

_ Now _

“Hey, Lance, has Shiro left this room, like at  _ all _ since I brought him a bowl of goo this morning?” Hunk asks.

Lance glances up from where he’s sitting on the steps in the castle’s roundish pod room. “Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Probably not. Every time _ I’ve _ been in here he’s been here, anyway.”

“Sheesh…yeah, same here.” Hunk is as concerned about Pidge as anyone, and he’s spent half the day in and out of here himself, but…

He makes his way over to Pidge’s pod. Shiro is sitting beside it on the steps, facing it so he can see her even as he reads something on a tablet. In fact, Hunk is pretty sure that’s one of Pidge’s tablets. 

“Interesting reading?” he asks. 

Shiro doesn’t look up. He shrugs. “Trying to catch up on her research on the Galra technology we’ve gotten a hold of.” Now he glances up and sees Hunk raising an eyebrow at the small orange tablet he’s holding. “If you’re wondering, she’s told me in the past she didn’t mind me borrowing this, when she told me she has quite a few books downloaded on it, too. Otherwise I wouldn’t have touched it; I know how she is about most of her equipment.”

Hunk snorts a laugh. “Well...fine. Good. Otherwise I’d have to kill you  _ for _ her right now.” He sighs and takes a seat not far from their leader. “Anyway, trying to see if there’s anything that might help with whatever’s supposed to be stored in your arm?” He’d told them about the dream he had while he was in a pod weeks ago. About the Galra who supposedly helped him escape. 

“Yeah.” Shiro narrows his eyes at the tablet. “No luck though.”

“Well, hey, you know, Pidge’ll be awake soon, and between the two of us I’m sure we can crack it if there’s anything there,” Hunk says. He doesn’t get an answer. “Hey...Shiro?”

“Hmm?”

“You know sitting here staring at the pod or that tablet or whatever you’re doing isn’t gonna make her better any faster.”

Coran pipes up from the control panel in the center of the room. Hunk isn’t sure when he came in. “Actually, Number Five is practically good as new now! Just a couple more vargas or so of rest, just to be sure, and we should be able to wake her.”

“Really?” Lance asks. 

“Really what?” Keith echoes. He and Allura wander in just in time to only catch Lance’s question, apparently. 

“Pidge is almost better,” Hunk answers. “I call first hug!”

“Then come back in two vargas,” Coran repeats. 

“Coran, what was repaired in the end? Do we have the report yet?” Shiro asks. He looks like he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer, and Hunk doesn’t really think he wants to either. He thinks about covering his ears if Coran answers...but that would just be silly. 

“Oh, uhm…” Coran turns back to the console slowly, and it’s pretty clear to Hunk that he’s taking his time pulling up any details. “Well, uhm, let’s see here…”

“Shiro, it’s not important,” Allura says quietly. “What’s important is that Pidge is home, and she will be all right.”

Hunk swallows. That doesn’t bode well; Allura, as the only other female, was the one to get Pidge cleaned up and change her clothes before they put her in the med pod. She’s the only one who might have seen the extent of any visible damage. 

Shiro shakes his head shortly. “I need to know.”

Another long several seconds of hemming and hawing and fiddling with the controls. 

“You’re beating around the bush, Coran,” Keith says. 

“Well, you see, for the most part it seems to have been just general malnutrition and exhaustion...the usual scrapes and bruises, not too many of them actually, the reconstructing of slightly atrophied muscle tissue in her arms and uhm…” Coran trails off and then tacks on the rest quickly, “There does also seem to have been two cracked ribs — one older injury, nearly healed, and one newer — and-and a decent amount of rejuvenation to overtaxed nerve endings, but in any case—”

“What?” Lance barks. “The heck does that last part even mean?”

Hunk knows. At this particular moment he is not a fan of what he knows about science and technology and the human body. From the thunderous look on Shiro’s face, he knows too. Actually, as silent as it suddenly is in here Hunk is pretty they all know, and even Lance is just playing dumb this time because it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t. 

Shiro discreetly passes over Pidge’s tablet, pressing it into Hunk’s hands, and from the way his fists clench after Hunk thinks he probably got rid of the small device to be sure he wouldn’t accidentally break it. 

“Coran…” Shiro says. It’s clear from his voice that he is struggling to keep it even. He stands, glancing back at the pod and its small white-clad occupant. “When we do open the pod, is there a way to do it without her waking up immediately? I ah...I feel like it might be better for her not to wake up like that. Maybe it would be better for her to wake up in her own room, in her own bed.”

“Hmm...opening the pod usually wakes the occupant automatically, but I  _ could  _ have it inject her with a mild sedative. She would sleep normally for a few vargas and wake on her own.”

“Good. Let’s do that.”

Coran tugs at his mustache. “Actually...if we’re going to do that, and have her resting a few more vargas under the sedative, we might as well release her now. The pod has done as much as it can for her in the healing department.”

“Then let’s get her out of there.”

 

_ Then _

Pidge was brought rudely back to the real world, away from the meadow and her lion, when the sensation of falling pulled her back. It only lasted a moment before she hit the cold metal floor and the breath was knocked out of her. 

She doubled over, coughing, but she tried to look around enough to figure out where she was. The apparatus was obvious - a nearly vertical table with energy restraints, and a druid at the control panel. Several Galra soldiers. It seemed like they’d merely turned off the restraints and let her fall. 

She could only faintly remember flashes of the pain from the device. Green had protected her from most of that. But she could feel the weakness and the deep soreness in her body it had left behind.

“You paladins think you’re invincible, don’t you?” one of the Galra growled. Pidge didn’t have the reaction time quick enough to deflect it when he kicked her. She saw stars. It took too long to get a breath and then she was coughing again and something burned in her chest. He drew back to land another blow, but the druid cut in.

“Please refrain from damaging the prisoner unnecessarily; return the paladin to her cell.”

The Galra snorted, but he obeyed. Being dragged to a cell between him and another soldier was decidedly unpleasant - enough that Pidge was certain something must be broken...or something. Her legs weren’t cooperating well, but she managed to keep them under her until they left, and the cell door closed. Only then did she sink down the wall to the floor.

Something was bubbling up in her chest. Laughter. Maybe she was tired and hysterical, but…

Green was still there, at the edge of her mind, nudging now, as if asking if she were all right.

“I’m fine,” she giggled. “Ow…” Something definitely hurt in her chest when she laughed, but laughing was still better than not laughing. 

“They don’t know our secret, do they? What? It’s funny.”

 

_ Now _

Shiro gently lowers Pidge from the pod as it opens, gathering her up in his arms. At first it seems everyone wants to follow him to her room, but Allura manages to run most of them off, convincing them it’s better not to because too many people runs the risk of waking her too soon.

Hunk is the only one who isn’t moved. “You’re gonna need me to come with,” he tells Shiro. “You’re probably gonna need someone to clear a path to the bed...and clear off the bed itself. Probably.”

Shiro blinks at that. “Oh...kay?”

Hunk has the satisfaction of being right when they get there. None of them had a lot with them when they ended up out here, but though Pidge chose a smaller room in the castle she had proceeded to fill it with computers and projects and other things found. It’s hard to get across the floor and the bed is half covered. 

“Oh my god, you really are teenagers,” Shiro deadpans. 

“And don’t you forget it!” Hunk crows quietly. He starts shoving things around, careful not to damage anything Pidge might be working on, and clears off the bed as Shiro stands in the doorway holding her and surveying the mess. The sedative seems to be working; whenever Hunk glances up periodically she is still sleeping peacefully against Shiro’s chest. 

“There,” Hunk says finally. He pulls the covers back and makes a flourishing motion. 

Shiro makes his way gingerly to the bed - the path still isn’t exactly a straight one - and carefully lowers Pidge onto the bed. He helps Hunk pull the blankets evenly over her and then sits carefully on the edge of the bed. Hunk sits at the foot of the bed, back against the interior of the alcove that forms around the bed itself. 

“Hey, man, you should go get some sleep...you’ve been keeping an eye on her in that pod for the better part of two days now.”

Shiro shrugs. “I’m fine.”

“Dude you are totally not fine. You’re exhausted. We’re all exhausted but at least the rest of us  _ tried _ to sleep.”

“I tried to—!”

“Really?”

“No…”

Hunk pulls Pidge’s tablet from his pocket and settles in where he is. “Right. So you go sleep, and I’ll keep an eye on her. I swear I will raise the alarm when it looks like she’s waking up.”

Shiro lets out a breath and is quiet for a moment, just watching Pidge breathe. When he glances up his eyebrows are raised in emphasis. “You’ll call the  _ second _ anything changes?”

“Shiro, man, I promise. Get some shut eye!”

“All right...” He makes part of a move, like he’s going to get up, but then he just sits there. He’s still just watching Pidge...being alive, maybe. Something. But there’s more to it than that.

“Shiro…you know none of this is your fault, right?” He doesn’t answer. “ _ Shiro _ .”

Shiro clears his throat. “Sure. Thanks, Hunk.” But he doesn’t sound like he believes it. Not one bit. He gets up, finally. “Anyway...let me know.”

“Yeah...will do.” Then Shiro is gone. 

Well...crap. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo...yeah. This basically turned out to be the Space Dad chapter with bonus Hunk, because Hunk is great, haha. I hope nobody minds? Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to hear from you! 
> 
> Hopefully, A03 is cooperating now? For a while there responses to comments wouldn't post; not sure what that was about.


End file.
